I'm just finishing a cough drop. I have my water in my pocket. I've got some tissues. I should be good to go. Good morning. Happy New Year. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Lord, we desire to be made in the image of Christ. We desire that You would use Your Word to teach us and transform us. We desire that You would be glorified in the preaching of Your Word. And we desire that we would have humble hearts, eager, to receive Your teaching. And we pray that it would find good soil, that it would grow and bring about much fruit in our lives. So Lord, may You be glorified during this time as we look into Your Word. And it's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Well, we've been going through the fruit of the Spirit. And the title of today's sermon is The Root of the Fruit 7, Faithfulness. And as we've been looking at the root of the fruit, we've seen that there's three different kind of roots that we focused on. One is the Old Testament. The fruit of the spirit isn't something new in the New Testament, but we see these these fruits playing out all throughout scripture. Also, we have seen that love is the basis of this fruit, that all of the fruit that we have grow out of love. And so we'll be looking at that as well. And third, Christ. Christ is the root of the fruit as we are growing it. He is the true vine and we are the branches and we receive nourishment and sustenance from Him as we are growing and bearing a fruit. And as we've mentioned many times, this is from Galatians 5 where we read about this fruit of the Spirit And in verse 16 it says, but I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. As we walk in the Spirit, as we grow in these different aspects of love and this fruit that we've been looking at, we are keeping the law. We are glorifying God. So today we're going to be looking at faithfulness one of the fruit that was listed by Paul in Galatians and Faithfulness when we get down to it is about devotion. It's about being reliable. It's about being fully in to serving the Lord. And so when we look at our own faithfulness, it reveals how devoted we are to the Lord. And so we'll be seeing that as we go through. Now, the first thing I like to do is to find the word in Hebrew, since we're looking at the root in the Old Testament, that means the fruit. And today, for faithfulness, that word is emet. Now, emet, as you know in languages, words are kind of descended and related to things. Well, emet has some parents. Some words that are parents. One of them means pillar. The pillar that holds up the roof. You need that pillar to be faithful, reliable, trustworthy. And so that's one of the parent words that faithfulness comes from, emet. There's also a cousin. I'm using family lingo here. There's a cousin to emet, which is amen. And when we say Amen, what do we mean? We mean it's true. It's trustworthy saying. I agree. Yes, it's right. And so it's the same thing. It's reliable. It's trustworthy. It's faithful. It's a faithful word. And so, when we look at Emet in the Old Testament, I've kind of grouped things, a lot of verses into four kind of categories. And the first one is reliable. And in Genesis 24, when Abraham sent his servant to go find a wife for his son Isaac, he gets there and he says, if you are going to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, tell me. If you're going to be reliable in this, if you're in, if you're going to be faithful, then tell me. Also, the sense of devotion in 1 Kings 2. if your sons pay close attention to their way to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul." Okay, so you see this devotion, this wholehearted devotion is a part of this emet, a part of this faithfulness in the Old Testament. And also, what does that phrase remind us of, with all your heart and with all your soul? Love, right? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. And right here, we already see a tie of emet, this faithfulness, to love as a root of where this faithfulness comes from. Also trustworthiness in Exodus 18. Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe. Men who are trustworthy, who are emet, who are faithful. Okay, and also the just the phrase keeping faith in psalm 146 who keeps faith forever who amet forever Okay, so there's that that sense of reliability something you can count on like that like that pillar You need to be able to count on that. It is faithful There's also another sense of this sureness, something that is sure, something that is trustworthy in that sense. And in Proverbs 11, it says, the wicked earns deceptive wages, but one who sows righteousness gets an emet reward, a sure reward. It's something you can count on. It's there. And also in Jeremiah 2, the sense of pureness. Yet I planted you a choice vine wholly of faithful seed, fully of emet seed, pure seed, something that's reliable, trustworthy, sure. And also the phrase, in good faith, which happens several times, it's translated as in good faith in the ESV. In Judges 9 it says, if in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade. So again, if you're doing this in good faith, if I can count on this, if this is sure that you're going to do this, then come, take refuge in my shade. There's also a sense of trueness, truthfulness. In 2 Chronicles 9, we see, and she said to the king, the report was true that I heard. The report was met. The report was faithful. This is a faithful report. It's a true report. Truth and truthfully same kind of thing in Jeremiah 9 everyone deceives his neighbor and no one speaks the truth And in Jeremiah 23 let him who has my word speak my word faithfully They may they speak it truthfully faithfully Okay, it's it's it's a word you can count on and also write and The sense of right. In Genesis 24, the God of my master Abraham, who has led me by the right way to take the daughter of my master's kinsman for his son. The right way, the Amet way, the faithful way, the true way. And then this fourth kind of category is this stability. And in Jeremiah 14, it says, Oh Lord God, behold, the prophets say to them, you shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place. And this assured is like this stable, this foundational peace, this peace that can be counted on. Okay, and similarly protection in Psalm 91. He will cover you with his pinions and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. Okay, so we see this protection as a part of the stability. He's going to bring about this peace and stability with his protection. He's going to ensure that it lasts through his emet, through his faithfulness. And also security. Isaiah 39, for he thought, there will be peace and security in my days. Peace and faithfulness, peace and amet in my days. So the sense of God's providing the stability and security and protection. Okay, so when we think then about faithfulness and what faithfulness means, it kind of covers a lot of these different things, right? But it all goes back to something that is trustworthy, something you can count on, something that is faithful, okay? Now, when we think about love, we already saw one verse where faithfulness was tied to love. But when you look at the word emit in the Old Testament, actually more than 25% of the time, Almost 30% of the time, the verse that has the word of met in it also has chesed, which is that loving kindness, that steadfast love. Almost 30% of the time it is tied to that steadfast love that God has promised. And so we see that in just a few examples here on the handout. Psalm 85, steadfast love and faithfulness meet. Righteousness and peace kiss each other. And in Psalm 108, for your steadfast love is great above the heavens, your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. And in then Micah 7, you will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old. See, the steadfast love is God's covenant promises. His steadfast love is His grace poured out upon His people, and it is worth nothing if there is not also God's faithfulness to carry out His promise, to carry out the covenant, to bring about the vows that he has made toward his people. There are a lot of examples of faithfulness in the Old Testament and I want us to look at the story, the narrative of David and Jonathan. And the two of them had great, great love for one another and it started right from the beginning, right after David was up against Goliath And that whole, I mean, he was the center of attention there, right? And he catches Jonathan's eye, obviously. And it says in 1 Samuel 18, as soon as he saw Jonathan's father, As soon as David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. Don't you love that phraseology? His soul was knit. Their souls were knit together. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Now, Saul was the king. Jonathan was next in line to be the king after Saul. But the Lord had chosen David. And so after a while and the demise of Saul and Jonathan, they were killed in battle. David laments their death because Saul was God's chosen person, his anointed over the kingdom. And he laments Jonathan, and in part of his lament in 2 Samuel 1, he writes this about Jonathan. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant have you been to me. Your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. Time out. Now, They make a covenant together, David and Jonathan. And in 1 Samuel 20, we read about this covenant and Jonathan is saying to David, if I am still alive, meaning you're gonna be the king, and if I'm still alive, show me the steadfast love of the Lord that I may not die. And do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever when the Lord cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth. You see, that was the custom. When you came into power, you would kill everyone in the other line, you know, so there wouldn't be anybody, any sons or brothers or cousins or whoever who would try to rise up and claim the throne because they were descended from Saul. So the normal all around the nations was just to kill everyone off from that line. And so Jonathan is saying, do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever. And then it says, and Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, may the Lord take vengeance on David's enemies. And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul. Now, I went over it a couple of times, but I want to make sure you hear it. The words that Jonathan uses here in this vow, do not cut off your steadfast love. Remember? We're just talking about that. The covenant love. Do not cut off your steadfast love from my house. And we know that steadfast love has to be maintained with faithfulness. And so we get to our main text in 2 Samuel 9. verses 1 through 8, and I have kind of abbreviated it a little bit, cut out a couple of verses and portions of verses in the outline, and I'm going to read through that portion. Now this takes place after the death of Jonathan and Saul, and after the Lord had brought about some peace, after David has been king for some time. And so that's when this happens here. And David said, is there still anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? See, so he stops now. The Lord has brought about some peace, and David's like, what do I do? What about Jonathan and the steadfast love I promised to him? What can I do? Is there anyone alive? who is a servant of Saul, said to the king, there is still a son of Jonathan. He is crippled in his feet. And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David, fell on his face, and paid homage. And David said, Mephibosheth. And he answered, Behold, I am your servant. And David said to him, do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father, Jonathan. And I will restore to you all the land of Saul, your father. And you shall eat at my table always. Time out. And he paid homage and said, what is your servant that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I? Mephibosheth was crippled when he was very young. And he is just one step away from being a beggar and homeless. in most of the world would have been killed off because he was son of Saul, or descendant of Saul. And here David, being faithful, rounds him up and brings him into his house as a son that he would eat at his table. Restores all of the lands of Saul to him. He has income. He suddenly has wealth. He suddenly has more than he ever dreamed. And he sits with the king in the king's house at his table. And what does he call himself? He calls himself a dead dog. I need my tissues for a different reason. And aren't we just like this? Job felt it for sure. In Job 25 it says, How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure? Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in his eyes. You know, the Lord looking at the moon, looking at the stars, In all of their brilliance, I have gone out and looked at the moon when it was full and bright and could hardly keep my eyes on it. It was so bright. And compared to that, God is so much more. And so Job says, how much less a man who is a maggot and the son of man who is a worm. And this is who we are when we come before the Lord. Worms. But we have hope. We have hope because God has made a promise to bring us as his people into his kingdom, that we would come and dine with him, that we would be adopted as his sons and daughters. And he has made this promise. And in Hebrews 10 it says, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. And in Exodus 34, we have even more proof of God's faithfulness because here, this is when Moses wanted to see the Lord. And the Lord said, fine, I will pass by and you'll see the back of me. But that wasn't even the glorious part. The glorious part was God's description of himself, which he gives to Moses. I hope you guys can understand me. I can't read. Hold on a second. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is the definition of God. Faithfulness. And He is going to keep His steadfast love, His covenant, His promise. And in Hebrews 6, there's another guarantee of God's faithfulness in keeping His promise to us to make us His people and to be our God. And how is this accomplished? How is the faithfulness of God accomplished? It's in Christ. Isaiah 16, this is about Christ. It says, then a throne will be established in steadfast love, and on it will sit in faithfulness, in the tent of David, meaning a descendant of David, the house of David, the Messiah. One who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness. And also Proverbs 16. This has to be about Christ. By steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for. It is in Christ and His faithfulness to keep the covenant and to sacrifice Himself for our sins that the steadfast love becomes evident becomes completed because of the faithfulness. I love this image of Christ in Revelation, one of the visions that John sees of the Lord. He comes in as a mighty warrior on this white horse, and his name is faithful and true. That's who he is. And so we can count on that faithfulness. We can count. That's where we put our hope. We put our hope into the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and his ability to rescue us, to save us from our sins, to bring us into his kingdom. And so how do we respond to that? How can we increase our faithfulness? This is a fruit that we are supposed to be growing and exhibiting in our lives. How do we do that? Well, first is to recognize our debt. In 1 Samuel 12, it says, Fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things He has done for you. What He has done for you, not only in the magnificent salvation He has wrought, but just providing for you day in and day out, teaching you and growing you in your walk, the relationships that He has blessed you with, even here in the church. the faithfulness that He has to carry you through to the end and to glory, eternal glory. And when we consider that, it empowers our own ability to be faithful to Him. And so we are faithful to Him with our whole heart. and that's what devotion is about in joshua 24 it says now therefore fear the lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness put away the gods that your father served beyond the river and in egypt and serve the lord we have things in our lives that are distractions to serving the lord things that are addictions, things that are guilt, things that are a past that we can't overcome. We have all of these things in our lives that we constantly go to instead of going to the Lord. We need to put aside all of these things that weigh us down, that entangle us, that keep us from running toward Christ. He is the prize that we're running toward. And so with our wholehearted devotion, we run toward Him, putting away all the distractions. Because He is faithful to us, so we must be faithful to Him. Time out. Another way that we are faithful is to keep our word. He keeps his word. When he says something, he means it and he does it. And so we have a warning from Jesus, a warning from James. Let your yes be yes and let your no be no. Meaning, when you say something, people need to believe it. They need to be able to trust it. It needs to be faithful. You can't go back on your word. You have to be true to your word and keep it. Another way that we are faithful is not only to recognize the faithfulness that he has shown to us, but to proclaim that faithfulness, to be a witness to that faithfulness, to Have a testimony in your own life of how faithful God has been and continues to be to you. In Psalm 40 it says, I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart. I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. We need to open our lips and proclaim his faithfulness. Because others need to hear of it. People are so desperate to have anything that they can trust, rely on, anything that's dependent. And we have that answer. So we need to take it and proclaim it. And there's a lot of ways that we are faithful, just being obedient day in and day out is being faithful. But one other one I wanted to highlight was being a good steward. You remember the parable of the talents. Where the master comes and he gives his servants differing amounts of talents, and then he says, go and be fruitful, and then he goes off. And then when he comes back, he checks in. And for those who were fruitful, he said, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master. He has given us so much. Time, talent, treasure, friendships, all of the responsibilities that we have, the reach that He has given us into our society. So much. And He expects us to be good stewards of those things, to use all that He has given to us in order to be fruitful, to multiply, and use it to the best of our ability to glorify Him. to further his gospel, to deepen our own growth, to enrich the lives of our brothers and sisters in any way that we can. So we must be good stewards so that when we see him, he can say, enter into the joy of your master. And you see, it's not our joy that we do this for. It's his joy, the joy of the master. And so he is always the focus as we are being good stewards. Each time I also like to highlight how the fruit can help us battle against evil, battle against the flesh, battle against our sinful nature. And there's a great verse about God being faithful to us even in our temptation in 1 Corinthians 10. No temptation has taken you that is not common to man. Which means that whatever temptation you have, whatever you're struggling with and dealing with, whatever gets you feeling the most guilty and down, you're not alone. This is a struggle that others have had, others are having. You are not alone. But it says God is faithful. He is faithful. He is not going to leave you. He is not going to forsake you. He is with you. And He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, He will provide also the way of escape. When you are in the midst of temptation, something will happen. Just look for it. You will wake up and say, what am I doing? This isn't right. There will be someone who will come to interrupt you. There will be a distraction of some kind. Something will interrupt. And you take that moment and you flee from the temptation. God is faithful. And this is a promise right here to us, even in our temptation, to be with us and to strengthen us and empower us to fight it and conquer it. And he will provide the way of escape that we may be able to endure it. The fruit of the Spirit, the purpose of it is to love God and love others. We are to be all in in our love of God and love of others. And as we are learning how to love with passion, with devotion, with purpose, when we are struggling and striving to do that, the fruit grows. All of this fruit grows and faithfulness grows. And so don't give up. Stay in the fight. Keep striving to be faithful. For even when we are unfaithful, He is faithful. Let me close by reading Galatians 5. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for being with me as I was struggling to deliver this message today. I pray that You would grow us, that You would encourage us, that You would continue to transform us and to make us like Christ. And Lord, Your faithfulness is so great. Your grace is so great. And we are so in awe of how much You love us. How much You are willing to do for us. And we praise You. And we thank You. And it's in Christ's name that we pray, Amen.